Tourism | Visitor arrivals up 8pct on back of National Week

Visitor arrivals increased by 7.9 percent year-on-year to 2.89 million in October, according to information released by the Statistics and Census Service (DSEC). The increase has been attributed to the National Day and Mid-Autumn Festival holidays.

Overnight visitors (1.47 million) and same-day visitors (1.41 million) increased by 7.3 percent and 8.4 percent respectively year-on-year, while the average length of stay of visitors held steady at 1.2 days.

Analyzed by place of origin, visitors from mainland China grew by 12.8 percent year-on-year to just over 2 million in October, mainly coming from Guangdong Province (836,000), Hunan Province (97,000) and Fujian Province (77,000).

In the same month, visitors from South Korea (81,000) surged 54.5 percent, while those from Hong Kong (466,000) and Taiwan (85,000) dropped by 9.4 percent and 2.1 percent respectively. Visitors from the United States (16,000), Australia (8,000), Canada (7,000) and the United Kingdom (5,000) all registered marginal decreases.

Analyzed by mode of transport, visitor arrivals by land (1.7 million) rose by 8.7 percent year-on-year, with the majority arriving via the Border Gate. Visitor arrivals by sea (940,000) increased by 2.8 percent year-on-year, while those arriving by air soared by 24 percent.

In the first 10 months of 2017, visitor arrivals totaled 26.72 million, up by 4.6 percent year-on-year. The average length of stay of visitors held stable at 1.2 days compared with the previous 10-month period, with that of overnight visitors (2.1 days) falling by 0.1 days and same-day visitors remaining at 0.2 days.